Sorry there hasn't been a lot of content late. I've been slaving away at the new chapter for the month, which has meant no time for games, food sleep. Much of anything. No new podcasts, no new streams. I've still got some old streams to still release though, so that's fine, and I've still got these chapters to catch up to 1x07. We're getting there.
1x02 “Investigations”
Emma couldn’t see
anything through the bag over her head. It was a dark fabric and smelled as if
it hadn’t been washed since the last time it had been over someone’s head. The
Suits had taken every precaution, not just while they were still in the rover,
but everywhere they’d been led since.
It hadn’t all
been in the rover. After an indeterminate amount of time the vehicle had come
to a stop and the two women were then shepherded like blind cattle into the
windy sandstorm outside, and to the cover of a building with wide hallways.
They were paraded through the halls, Emma knocking her shin against something
hard but getting no apology from the Suit leading her. Finally, after another
in a string of long smooth hallways, they came to a stop and Emma was shoved
into a room.
The sack was
taken off Emma’s head, and she could see the same being done for Kat beside
her. The room they were in had monotonously smooth gray walls, with sharp
corners that made like an octagon of the room. The lights were bright, nearly
too bright, and there was a large nondescript black table in the center of the
room surrounded by chairs. Agent Bald dropped Kat’s knapsack on the table and
left the room.
Emma moved to
follow Agent Red as he left behind Agent Bald, but the door shut quickly
between them, locking in place. It was as non-descript as any of the other
walls in the room. She banged against it. “Hey!” She yelled, still tasting that
disgusting sack in her mouth. “You have no right to treat me like this! I’m a
hard working tax paying citizen of Hymalious City and I have rights.”
She circled the
room, banging on all the walls, feeling the cold of the metal under her palms.
She kept looking up certain that one of the strange lights hanging from the
ceiling was actually a camera. She just didn’t know which one. “You hear me?
I’m a functioning member of your society. You can’t just ignore me in here!”
she yelled up at the ceiling. “People will come looking!”
She looked at the
wall she was now banging against. “Shit,” she said, comparing it to the other
walls around the room. “You know, I’ve forgotten which one of these is the door?”
Kat, her brown
hair a tangled mess after being in a sweaty sack for hours, was already sitting
at the table and going through her bag, pulling out her notes and sprawling
them across the surface.
“For a squirrely
scaredy Kat like you,” Emma said, studying her new roommate, “You don’t seem
too concerned about any of this.” She sat down across from Katherine, and
leaned forward in her seat. “Don’t you care that they’ve just left us here?”
Kat looked up at
Emma through her too large for her head glasses. “I d-don’t much mind. I really
w-wanted to get these equations out of my head.” Sure enough she seemed quite
concentrated on writing whatever into her datapad.
“Why did they
want you?” Emma asked, grabbing at some of Kat’s notes. “You’re not even out of university…” her
voice trailed off as she tried and failed to make sense of all the numbers that
were written on the digital page. That was the second time that day she’d tried
to read Kat’s notes and only ended up more confused.
“I don’t know,”
Kat said to Emma. “And you c-couldn’t possibly know. Nor do we know what’s
g-going to happen to us. We’ll just have to wait and see. We have no contr-
con- control over anything except our own actions right here and n-now, and I
ch-chose to continue my work unabashed. It’s the logical thing to d-do.”
Emma hadn’t seen
Kat in years, since the girl was still in high school. “You’ve grown up to be a
cheeky little bitch, haven’t you,” Emma said roughly, but with love.
Kat opened her
mouth as if to be offended, but closed it with a huff, looking up from her
notes to Emma, and reaching out for her notepad.
“So what are you
working on?” Emma asked, handing her the datapad. “Simulating gravity in deep
space using electromagnetics?”
“N-no,” Kat said,
careful to put the datapad back exactly where it had been. “Th-That was m-my
science fair p-project. I’m working on m-my university final right n-now.”
Kat smiled,
laughing a little under her breath as she locked her squirrely brown eyes on
Emma’s through her messy hair. “H-how do you remember that p-project anyway. It
was y-years ago.”
Emma touched
Kat’s hand, hoping she wouldn’t have to talk about her feelings aloud. She’d
felt like a bit of a mother to Kat when the tyke had been more an actual tyke.
Especially without an actual mother to raise her, Emma could absolutely imagine
how tough it would be being raised without a mother.
“You know,” Emma
said to Kat. “I lost my mother too. Back when I was just a kid.”
“The Suits?” Kat
asked, not returning to her work, but looking away from Emma to stare at the
wall. She didn’t even have to see Emma nod. “Is that why you insisted on
coming? You were hoping to meet her here?”
“I dunno what I
hope,” Emma said, looking at a different wall with an equal intensity to Kat’s
stare. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Emma said, and she snuck a
glance back to Kat, who had noticed Emma was mocking her and they shared a
grin.
Kat looked down
at her notes, snorting to herself as she laughed, and Emma followed her gaze.
“What is this
stuff then?” she asked Kat.
Kat crossed her
arms with pride. “Proving the feasibility of instantaneous travel through
intergalactic space,” she said, with triumph. And not a single stutter.
Emma crossed her
arms as well. “Doesn’t sound very feasible to me,” Emma said honestly.
“Yes w-well,” Kat
said with a frown, ”if I can find a c-currently unproven mineral c-capable of
giving off a hypothetical radiation when electrically charged then I m-might be
able to prove it’s possible. I’m certain it exists somewhere. In na-nature.
Natural forming phenomena.”
“You don’t sound
too sure,” Emma said, her impatience rising again. She slammed her fists on the
table and Kat gave her a dirty look. “Did they just forget about us in here?”
Kat shrugged,
digging back into her notes. “W-wouldn’t be the f-first t-time.”
* * *
“Casualties are
numbered under a thousand,” the voice on the TV said, as the camera panned over
images of destruction and rubble, people scrambling to get free or crying for
help. Though the signal was coming
through clear, Oscar’s eyes were not as reliable as they once were, and he
could barely make out the mayhem they were showing on the screen. But he heard
every word. His ears worked just fine. “Experts are insisting the disaster
could have been worse,” the reporter continued talking.
“In a somewhat
related story, federal and municipal prisons are being downsized again. We have
attained footage of multiple locations being actively stripped for parts,” the
reporter droned on, “Still no official comment from chairwoman Maggie May,
though her cabinet has reached out to assure us that the worst offenders are
not being released, but instead put to work on the dismantling efforts, and
being held at a recently converted hotel.” The reporter raised his eyebrow.
“Murderers getting free nights at a resort? Where do I sign up?”
“That’s it then,”
Oscar’s wife Natalie said from beside him, her voice old and creeky. “The
beginning of the end.” Oscar was fairly certain she had been talking about the
first story, and not the far less impactful second story. It seemed the more
important and serious the news became, the less anyone wanted to cover it.
“We knew this
would happen eventually,” Oscar told his wife, though perhaps he had no idea it
would all come so fast. He also didn’t really know, when he made the decisions
he did in his youth, how fast age would take him. It wasn’t just his eyes that
were bad, after all. His back kept going out, and his hand would spasm randomly
from nerve damage he took five years ago. He was falling apart. He’d past the
point in his life where things would ever be getting better. Now they would
just keep getting progressively worse.
“I thought we’d
have more time,” Natalie said, getting up from their quaint couch. They lived in
a small apartment that they had spent much of their life labouring away to only
barely afford. Oscar moved to follow after his wife, but his back didn’t want
to listen to him. Instead he reached out for her hand.
“I didn’t think
it would be this hard,” Natalie continued, and Oscar squeezed his grip.
“We did it for
her, remember,” Oscar said, reminding them both of their beautiful daughter.
“So that Stephanie could have a life.” He wondered where she was now, worried
that something had happened in the tragedy. Perhaps she had been hurt. He was
fairly certain that was not her fate, but why hadn’t she contacted them?
“If we could just
tell her,” Natalie told her husband, but Oscar disagreed. It was an impossible
ask. If she knew the truth about their past…
“She can never
know,” Oscar said right away, as Natalie stepped into the tight front foyer
that led from the front door to the kitchen, living room, and two small
bedrooms. She had to duck under the doorway as the ceilings were low and then
turned towards the kitchen, Oscar supposed, to get lunch started. “If Stephanie
found out, they would come looking for her.”
“Do you think a
terrorist attack is an inappropriate time to make Shepherd’s pie?” Natalie
asked, already peeling potatoes. Oscar didn’t think there was such thing as an
inappropriate time for shepherd’s pie, but he didn’t get a chance to say
exactly such as the door suddenly opened.
“Honey!” Natalie
said to their daughter in the doorway, though from the living room Oscar
couldn’t see her yet. “You’re filthy! Where have you been?”
“Stephanie!”
Natalie said their daughter’s name in complaint, coming into view in the
hallway as Stephanie also stepped into sight at the doorway. “Is that blood?”
Stephanie was taller than her mother now, and looked so mature standing there.
Oscar’s two beautiful ladies in one place. Even though Stephanie’s uniform was
coming back soaked in blood for a second time in a row.
“It’s fine mom,”
Steph said with a roll of her eyes, dropping her sack and sitting in a chair in
the living room. “It’s not mine,” she said with a look at her father. “I was
helping out downtown.”
“Honey,” Natalie
said, joining them in the living room and rubbing her daughter’s back. “You
work too hard.”
“Someone has to
around here,” Stephanie said, upset and emotional. She’d had a rough day, but
that didn’t make her words hurt any less. “Why aren’t you at work?” she asked
her father.
“They laid him
off,” Natalie told their grown child. “It’s his back. It went out on him again,
and they can’t use a man who isn’t stable.” Stephanie’s eyes lowered. “There
just isn’t work out there for people our age anymore.”
“It’s okay,”
Oscar said ashamed that he couldn’t provide for his family. “You don’t have to
defend me.”
He could see
shame in Steph’s eyes, similar to his own shame. “No,” she said, punching the
armrest and getting up. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Times are hard,”
Oscar told her, trying to smile.
“And they’re only
going to get harder,” Natalie continued, always the realist.
“But don’t forget
that we love you,” he told her, reaching to pull her into a hug. “And that’s
something time can never take from you.”
Stephanie stepped
away, holding her arms close to her chest and not meeting their eyes. “I need
to clean up and change,” she told them, her messy black hair falling over her
face, “I work at the bar tonight. We can use the tips.”
* * *
“This is bad,”
John said out loud, standing on top of a pile of rubble and debris as two
paramedics hustled past him with a large stretcher that they were taking deep
into the center of the chaos.
“Understatin’
much?” Gilber asked from below him, lighting a new cigar between his teeth. “We
stood there and insisted to the council that Blazkor wasn’t gunner be a problem
anymore.”
An effort was
being made to move the large cable, trucks coming in from one of their allied
cities. The best solution their engineers could find was to separate the cable
into pieces, heavy as it was. As each piece was moved, more injured and
casualties were found underneath. There were people still trapped under half
buried structures and those who were free were stumbling around in a daze,
coughing everywhere, and inhaling the grey fumes of ash that filled the air
around the damage site.
“Now the council
is requestin’ I send all our forces on a mad combing of the deep desert.”
Gilber was chewing on his cigar more aggressively than usual, even as he was
puffing away. “I think they got us searchin’ the wrong place.”
John jumped off
the mound of debris he was standing on and landed lightly on his feet beside
Gilber. The look he gave Gilber must have been self-explanatory, even though
they were both wearing sunglasses.
“They’re
somewhere out there,” he told John, “Sure. But we ain’t gunner find em. Not
like that.”
John thought he
might understand what Gilber was getting at. “You think there are operatives
still in the city.”
Gilber beaconed
for John to follow him back up the steps towards Prime Central station. “When
the attack came, the one in the lobby, the lift was immediately launched, ensure’n
the attackers couldn’t get ta it. But there were already bombers on board.”
“So then why do
they attack in the lobby at all?” John asked, flashing his identification as
they passed a check point into the commercial center of Prime Central. Gilber
led John through the crowd to a service elevator.
“We’re headin’ up
to tha fifth floor,” Gilber told John, waiting until the doors closed to
continue talking. “I think the attack was just a distraction.”
“But the bombers
were already on board,” John reasoned with him.
“I think that was
a distraction too,” Gilber told John. “One distraction to get him in and
another distraction to get him out.”
“An expensive
distraction,” John said as the elevator doors opened again and they got out.
His mind was reeling with how much it would cost to clean everything up, let
alone rebuild.
“So then what
were they trying to get in and out from?” John asked Gilber, though he was
starting to suspect he was being led there now.
“You ever hear
word o’ the Custodian of Records?” Gilber asked his protégé as they arrived at
a desk. Paramedics were cleaning up the area and bagging a body.
“Let me guess,”
John said. “Was it this guy?”
“He defends the
mainframe, source of our entire global network here at Prime Central Station.”
Gilber flashed his credentials at two more guards, and John followed suit as
the two of them passed under a large metal door into a dark empty room. There
was a round computer in the center of the room with a screen that went all the
way around.
“That’s a big
computer,” John said, underwhelmed. He wasn’t really much of a computer person.
“Does it play any games?”
“It can play
every game,” a young snide voiced man said as he left one terminal to pass John
and type at another. “All at once. And still have time for general system
operations. And still have room in the bandwidth for porn.”
“Cool,” John said
flatly behind his shades.
“Dis is Billy,”
Gilber explained. “’e’s head of our communications division. How long till
everythin’s back online?”
“We never went
offline,” Billy said as if it was obvious. “We have redundancies and back-ups
that kicked in. Everything is very compartmentalized. It’s running a little
slow, but that’s hardly my problem. We have maintenance on the way to work on
that as we speak.”
“Are we supposed
to be impressed?” John asked the little twerp who seemed to be looking at the
two of them for gratification.
“The system is
very complicated,” Billy tried to say.
“They had to know
that,” John told Gilber. “If they weren’t here to take down the network then
they must have been trying to pull something.”
“Dat’s why my boy
Billy is here,” Gilber told John. “If they stole information, ‘e’ll be able ta
figure out what they stole.”
“It would have
been easy,” Billy said, raising a small rectangular box with multiple holes
through it, “if they hadn’t shot up the hard drive.” He dropped it, and
returned his attention to the terminal in front of him. “No important data was
lost, everything stored in the cloud of course. But he did destroy the local
logs on what he accessed at this terminal.”
“You can’t track
him through the network?” John asked, unsure if what he said even made sense.
“There’s
markers,” Billy told him, surprising John that he’d been right. “I’m trying to
find them, it’s just going to take some time.”
“I guess it
doesn’t matter much what they took,” John said.
“Oh it matters,”
Gilber mumbled though John knew his superior officer was following his logic.
“They’re gonna
still be somewhere in the city,” John reasoned, “waiting with the intelligence
for an extraction.”
Gilber grinded
his teeth against his cigar, after ashing on the floor, and said, “Unless we
can get to em first.” He pulled John away from the mainframe. “I’m putting you
in charge of the investigation. Just gunner be you and one udder.”
“Who’s my
partner?” John asked, surprised there was someone else Gilber trusted enough
with this.
“Me.” Gilber
said.
* * *
“The Blazkor has
been in rebellion with the global alliance for over two hundred years,
beginning during the rule of Suma’s great grandfather Emperor Davi’s,” the
teacher droned on from the front of the class as Alec was only barely paying
attention.
A scrawny short
teen with spikey hair, glasses, and few friends, Alec had chosen his seat at
the back of the class on purpose. It was the one in the back corner, behind the
large Boomball player Ox. Behind Ox, Alec could distract himself with his wrist
device all he wanted and the teacher would never know.
“It was during
this period,” the teacher droned on as Alec played Slither on his wrist device,
“that the Emperor was charged with crimes against his people for illegal
genetic experiments.”
Alec’s slither
was so long now that it took up half the screen and could slither ten times
faster than a normal slither. Suddenly there was an alert on his screen and,
though Alec would normally ignore his alerts while his game was going so well,
this time the alert was enough to make him pause.
“When the Emperor
Davi’s wouldn’t step down,” The teacher continued, “War started between the
provinces. There hasn’t been a year of peace since.” She was starting to pace
around the room.
The alert on Alec’s
device came from a crawler he had that would ping him to the use of a specific
name anywhere on the interwebs. George Penman. It was a name that had been
dormant for many years, but just showed up on a list of inmates being released
from prison due to downsizing. As he read the alert, Alec’s heart froze and his
skin crawled.
“Alec Penman,”
the teacher yelled across the room. “What in the solar hells are you doing on
that thing?”
“Taking notes,” Alec
insisted, his lie coming quick to him. “But I’m not feeling so good Ma’am.” It
wasn’t a complete lie. “Is there any chance I could go home early?”
“Is it because of
the attack?” the teacher asked with what seemed like real concern. “Because you
know the office is offering counselling for anyone feeling affected by the
terrorist attack.”
Alec knew that
there was nothing a counsellor could do for him. “I’d rather be home with my
family,” he admitted to the teacher.
The woman smiled
gently. “Of course,” she said. “I understand. You can leave.” Oh thank god.
It had been a lie
of course. Alec had no intention of returning to his foster family. Sure they
were nice people, but they were in the system. Alec’s father would have no
problem finding him there. Better he warn his sister Emma. They’d both be safer
staying at David’s place. David had always been like a big brother to Alec, and
the teen knew the doctor wouldn’t be too busy for one more guest at the dinner
table.
* * *
“That was the
last patient,” David said with exhaustion, collapsing into his chair behind his
desk. He’d spent the better part of the afternoon taking on injured from the
attacks, fixing broken limbs and participating in a couple minor surgeries.
Thankfully there was no more deaths on their tables since the man from the cafe,
and once everyone was stabilized they were either sent home or to other
hospitals in the area for long term care.
“Dank the solar
gods that ze surroundin’ hospitals had room for all zem injured,” Zach said,
joining David in his office. “If we had ta take on all zem people…” Zach
trailed off.
“Especially being
down an examination room,” David reminded his co-worker who likely didn’t need
any reminding. “We’ll have to get Lizzie to try and clean some of that up
tomorrow.”
“She’ll kill ye
for zat one, Doctor Stanfield,” Zachary said, noticing something on David’s
screen. “Speakin’ a zat mess, looks ta me like ze blood analysis has come
through.”
David had been too
tired to even think about his blood analysis, but turning in his chair, he
opened the results on his screen.
“Vat de you think
the bloke meant, mucking up our walls with zat nonsense?” Zach asked his
friend, as he peered over David’s shoulder and the two of them read the
results.
“Lankey,” Zach
muttered absentmindedly, “He vas skinny for sure--”
“Zach,” David
said. “Take a look at these proteins.” He pointed to a specific segment of the
screen.
Zach followed his
gaze. “Zat kind of DNA damage is not natural,” he said as he read along. “If
zis is true, zen you ‘ave no choice but to collect—“
“Environmental
readings,” David said, finishing his colleague’s thought. “I know.” There was
very little that could cause so much protein damage in a body. It was like some
kind of accelerated mutation, that could potentially have been caused by
environmental factors. He wouldn’t know for sure until he tracked down the
man’s home.
“Perhaps the
man’s dying words will help me figure out who he is,” David reasoned out loud.
“Sounds like
you’ve got a long night ahead a’ you too.” Zach said with a slap on the Doctor’s
back. “I’m grabbin my kit an’ headin’ down to ground zero ta offer my help.
Maybe get teh question some Suits zere what in the nebulous hells zey did ta my
daughter.”
* * *
“Launch in five
minutes,” A voice Tameka knew she was supposed to ignore said over the
loudspeaker as personnel passed the door on their run through the cavern halls.
“Meka!” Jack
yelled, pushing through the torrents of people to join her in the doorway to
the large cavern where her mother’s people had found the ancient glyphs.
“Where’s everyone
heading?” Tameka asked her friend loudly over the noise of action around her.
“Your mother just
wants people ready,” Jack explained. “And she’s putting a couple birds in the
air.”
Tameka gestured
for Jack to continue. “Well don’t let me keep you,” she said with irritation.
“Your mother told
me to stick with you,” Jack told her.
“To keep an eye
on me no doubt,” Tameka muttered, turning back into the cavern she had just
come from. Jack followed after her.
“It’s not like
that,” Jack insisted adamantly. He was her momma’s little bitch like the rest
of them.
“It’s not?”
Tameka asked with faux surprise. “You know she only put me here to keep me out
of the way right?”
“Or maybe,” Jack
argued, “all this stuff is just so vitally important,” he pointed up at the
ceiling and surrounding walls, “that she couldn’t trust it to anyone but her
daughter.” He suddenly seemed more interested in the walls than what they had
just been talking about. “What do you think all this means anyway?”
“You know about
the legends of the ship in the deep desert right?” Tameka asked her friend
flatly, with disinterest, and insisting to herself that their previous
conversation wasn’t over. She’d only had a chance to study a small portion of
the markings, and had made some notes on some of the most straightforward
things.
Jack seemed to
wince at her question. “I never really cared much for history,” he admitted,
fiddling with an elastic band. “I’m more the type to always be looking
forward.” He pulled the band back and released it so that it soared across the
room. She could relate to what he was saying, and often felt the same way.
“Well,” Tameka
said, always open to educating her best friend. “Well from what I was able to
make out from this main image here, it says we were once a powerful and
advanced space faring race. That we were banished to this planet, crashed here
in a ship and told we could never leave.”
“Huh,” Jack said,
and Tameka had no idea if he was even following along. “So this is like caveman
science fiction or something.” He pointed at a random drawing on the wall.
“What about that one? What does it say?”
“How the solar
hells am I supposed to know?” Tameka complained. “I’m not a linguist, Jack, or
an archaeologist or whatever the fak.” She sat down on a rock. “If my mother
really thought this stuff was important, she’d have found one of them to head
this project, and she’d have all her forces excavating this room.”
Jack sat down on
the rock beside her but he didn’t speak.
“Did you hear
about the attack on the space elevator?” Tameka asked her friend. “All those
people dead. I remember watching on TV when the space elevator opened for the
first time.” Her mother had told her it was the end of them. Death to their
entire way of life. Tameka didn’t believe her mother even back then. She
thought it was pretty, and the idea of connecting them to the stars was an
exciting prospect for her.
“My mother’s gone
mad,” Tameka said, unable to stop thinking about the damage she caused to what
Tameka saw as forward progress. She felt like she was trapped on the wrong
side. “I tried to tell her our objective wasn’t a weapon. She doesn’t even
wanna hear it.”
“You mother has
always been radical,” Jack somehow managed to say in a way that sounded
reasonable. “It’s how we’re still alive.” Tameka knew he was making some sense,
but it still pissed her off that her friend was choosing her mother’s side
against her.
“You can’t stop
her,” Jack insisted to Meka. “I’ve seen what happens to people who try. If you
turn against her she’ll—“ Jack trailed off, but Tameka knew what he was going
to say.
“Do what?” She
asked, getting up off the rock and pacing back and forth. “I’m her daughter.”
“I don’t know,”
Jack said with a shrug.
“Help me,” Tameka
said, bending over Jack and touching his knee. “Please. We have to get a
message to them.”
“Who?” Jack
asked, and Tameka couldn’t believe he was so slow.
“Hymalious
forces. We have to warn them about the attack,” she continued on unabashed. “We
have to give them something to help them.”
“Something like
the rendezvous location in the city where your mother ordered her men to take
key intel after the attack?” Jack asked Tameka though he already knew her
answer. “One of the pilots blabbed it to me after their briefing.”
That was exactly
the opportunity they needed. Now she’d just have to get a message off without
her mother knowing.
* * *
“Alec!” David
said, recognizing the teen lounging on the steps outside his place, even through
the sandy winds. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” David was tired and not quite
sure if he was up to Alec’s hyper antics.
“Yeah right,
Dee.” Alec got up and served David an unneccesary salute. “They released my dad
from prison. I got a ding about it and everything.”
“I’m sorry,”
David admitted honestly. Their dad had been an awful person, at least from the
stories he’d heard.
“School’s the
first place he’d come looking for me,” Alec explained to David. “I’m gonna need
somewhere to crash for a while.”
“I supposed you
can stay with us for a few days,” David finally conceded to Alec. It wouldn’t
be the first time, Alec was like a younger brother to David. An unfortunate and
annoying side effect of being so close to Emma. “You see your sister at all?”
“If Ems were inside,”
Alec told David, “you think I’d be standing out here in this sandstorm?”
He grabbed his
sack and threw it over his shoulder waiting for David to unlock the door. “I
woulda hacked your lock but I didn’t wanna be rude.”
“Emma was takin
by Suits,” David told her brother, ignoring his rambling, “about six hours ago.
They probably still have her.”
Alec bit his lip.
“Well then what are we standin’ around here for? Lets go break her out!”
David opened his
door and they stepped inside. It was a relief to be able to talk without the
howling winds drowning them out. “Apparently she went of her own free will,”
David explained to Alec.
“If you’d like to
help though,” David said, suddenly remembering something. “You could tell me if
you’ve ever heard the word Lankey used around.”
“Lankey?” Alec
repeated. “Yeah I’ve heard of it. It’s a bar. I go there a lot when I sneak
out. Named after the owner.”
“You sneak out a
lot?” David asked.
Alec nodded. “I’m
here, Aren’t I?”
“This Lankey,”
David said, forming a question he didn’t want to know the answer to. “He ever
serve you alcohol?”
Alec smiled and
crossed his arms. “Why do you think I go there all the time?”
“Take me,” David
insisted.
“Aw man,” Alec
complained. “You’ll just crimp my style.
* *
The bar in
question was across town, a ratty old one floor building. It was a dive bar if
ever David had seen one. It had a shoddy looking neon sign that looked like it
used to read ‘Lankey’s Lounge’ but the word Lounge wasn’t lit up, and instead a
Bristol board had been taped over top with the word ‘Bar’.
“So you think
what happened to that dead dude could be something to do with this bar?” Alec
asked after David had spent the trip over there explaining what had happened.
“No,” David told Alec.
“What happened to him took time. Years of damage. Maybe someone here knew him,
and what region he hails from. It’s there I’ll find my answers.” David grabbed
a large handle on the creaky heavy door, and was disgusted to find it felt
sticky to his touch. Pulling the door open, a peek inside wasn’t very inviting.
“Or not.” The place was dead.
“It’s barely
supper time, what did you expect?” Alec asked. “Place won’t be bumping at least
until the sun goes down.” As they stepped inside, they followed a trail of sand
that led from the door. It was obvious the floor didn’t get swept much. There
were booths and tables around the joint, and not one looked even remotely
sanitary enough to eat off of.
“Then I guess
we’d best make ourselves comfortable,” David said, crossing the empty dive bar
to approach the bartender. He was a large man with hairy arms and a round stern
face.
“I’ll take a
water,” David said to the man, who looked back with annoyance.
“We don’t serve
water,” the large bartender said in a husky voice. He was cleaning a glass with
a rag that looked more dirty than the glass.
“Didn’t you see
the sign?” Alec asked, pointing to a paper sign beside the cash register that
said in marker ‘No water’. “Alright Lankey,” Alec said, leaning forward on the
counter. “We’ll take two of whatever you got on tap.”
“Roger that,”
Lankey said, bustling into action. “I got a good brew on tap tonight.” David
was relieved, at least, that the bartender grabbed different glasses than the
one he had just been cleaning. Putting them under the nozzle, he filled them up
with a foaming amber brew.
“You do know he’s
underage,” David said as Lankey placed the brews on the counter, and David gave
the man his charge card.
“Look around,
buddy,” Lankey said to the doctor. “It’s the end of the world.”
There was only
one other group of people in that bar besides them. Four people in sandy
clothes were huddled around a table in the far corner of the room. David made
sure to pick a table in the middle, and sat down on one side while Alec took
the other.
“Do you think
he’s right about the end of the world?” Alec asked David.
“It never ceases
to amaze me how people don’t let a pesky thing like dehydration keep them from
drinking alcohol. Who cares if it will only serve to dehydrate them more. Who
cares if it’s literally a poison.”
“I dunno,” Alec
said, lifting his large glass of beer with both hands. “If the world is ending,
sounds to me like more cause to drink yourself to death.” He took a sip of the
beer carefully, and put it down slowly.
“Stop,” David
said, unable to watch anymore. “Just stop.” If you couldn’t lift your beer with
one hand, David just didn’t think you were old enough to drink it. Beer wasn’t
hot cocoa. “Aren’t you a little young to be so pessimistic?” he asked Alec,
wondering when he had looked away long enough for the boy to have grown up so
much.
The door of the
bar opened, and two large military looking men stepped into the bar, wearing
sunglasses that they didn’t take off. The younger man had a clean haircut, and
well maintained features. The older man was poorly shaven and chewing on a
cigar. They were both large and looked quite able to take care of themselves.
From the corner
of the room David heard one twenty something fair voiced man whisper to his
friends. “It’s not him.”
“Dammit,” a sweatier
man said. “We should just go.”
David nudged Alec.
“Did you see that?” he asked, trying not to bring too much attention to
himself. “Those men watching the door. I think they’re waiting for someone.”
“I didn’t see
nothing,” Alec said, taking another sip of his drink, and this time making a
face. This was getting painful to watch. “And I certainly wasn’t watching no
creepy dudes watch a door.”
“I’m gonna talk
to them,” David said, and Alec gave him an incredulous look.
“You wanna talk
with the creepy dudes?” Alec asked. “This is honestly the last time I go
drinking with you.”
*
John sat down at
the table with Gilber, close to a pale man and his teen kid. He was fairly
certain they weren’t the ones Gilber was looking for.
“You sure this is
the place?” John asked Gilber, acutely aware of the four guys behind him
watching him closely.
“Yeh,” Gilber
said, waving for the bartender. “This is the place.” The bartender arrived. “A
couple beers please. An’ can I smoke?”
“I dun see why
not,” the large bartender said roughly, and John was surprised how similar the
two men sounded.
“Good man,”
Gilber said. They were there because Billy had received an anonymous tip from
his department, an anonymous tip meant for Gilber.
“I don’t usually
pay attention to anonymous tips,” Billy had said to them earlier, an excuse for
why he had almost ignored the message. The message warned that the rebels had
access to project Rebirth’s schematics, and that they would be rendezvousing at
Lankey’s bar for extraction.
“That coincides
with my findings,” Billy had admitted to them, finishing his analysis on the
network.
The bartender
brought their drinks as Gilber lit his cigar.
“There’s a few
things I don’t get about their plan,” John admitted to Gilber. “Why the blueprints?
They’ve already seen the project. They already know what we’re building. What
do they need the blueprints for? And why would they come here?”
“And why attack
the space elevator,” John continued as Gilber lit his cigar and puffed away.
“We’d got them on the run, their attack on the ship failed. They saw we were
almost done construction.”
“Eggheads are
already talking about alternative methods to get the remaining supplies up,”
Gilber told John. “Personnel is gunner be the hardest.”
“They slowed us
down,” John tried to reason through, “But barely. And for what purpose? Now we
know what we’re looking for. Wouldn’t it have suited them better to work from
the shadows?”
Gilber leaned
back in his chair. “Ye’ve clearly never met Suma Davi’s.”
*
“What choo want?”
The sweaty man said as David approached the table, past the large military men
who sat near them. The table consisted of four guys. The fair voiced one, the
sweaty one, a guy with a beard, and a man in a hood. They all seemed about
David’s age, but had darker skin likely from living closer to the equator.
“Is this seat
taken?” David asked, pointing to a fifth chair at the table.
“Ye,” the sweaty
man said. “It’s on reserve.”
The fair voiced
man spoke next. “We’ve got another man coming,” he told David. “As you can see,
there’s plenty of other seats in this establishment for you to plant your ass.”
*
Alec couldn’t
believe how badly David was asking to get beat up, and he wasn’t too keen to be
associated with the guy. Gulping back his beer, he took the glass to the bar to
get a refill. The night waitress was only just starting her shift and smiled at
him as she filled his glass.
“You know Doctor
Stanfield?” she asked, nodding to the man across the room. At first Alec was
scared to respond, but upon looking at her he realized she was super hot and he
would answer any question she had. She couldn’t have been more than a year or
two older than Alec, with long black hair and enrapturing blue eyes.
“David?” Alec
said, nodding. “Oh yeah, I know David. Davie. We’re old friends. Brothers
really.” He stuttered and stumbled through his introduction to her. “K-kinda.
Not really. But kinda. My name’s Alec. How do you know David?” She was so
attractive. What if David and her were dating? That would be gross, he was like
three times her age.
“I’m Steph,” she
told Alec, and he loved the name already. Steph. What an amazing perfect name.
“He’s a regular at the diner I work during the day.”
“You work two
jobs?” Alec asked with a grimace behind his glasses he couldn’t suppress. “That
must be the worst ever.”
“Those people
your friend is talking to,” Steph said with a nod towards the men across the
room. “They’re not good people.”
Alec followed her
gaze, and had to admit the people didn’t give him a very good feeling. “They
come in a lot?” he asked her.
“Only in the last
few months,” Steph told him. “Nearly every day.”
*
“You’re waiting
for someone,” David said, taking a seat in their fifth chair. “I can tell.”
“The solar hells
was yer first clue?” the sweaty man said, looking ready to punch David now.
Perhaps sitting in their chair had been a mistake. “The fact we just said as
such?”
“Skinny guy?”
David asked, hoping he could get their attention. “Tanned like you?”
*
“There’s just a
slight hiccough in yer thinkin,” Gilber told John, a little louder than they had
previously been talking. John wondered if Gilber wanted to be heard. “Ye didn’t
factor in the fact that them Blazkor boys are dumb as shit and their leader
Suma is a batshit crazy bitch.”
“General Gilber
sir?” John asked, surprised that Gilber was being particularly vulgar, even for
him. Gilber was looking in John’s direction, but John couldn’t help but feel he
was really looking over John’s shoulder.
Without making it
too obvious, John glanced over his shoulder and noticed Gilber’s topic of
conversation seemed to have attracted the attention of the silent bearded man
at the other table. He was watching them now quite intently even as his friends
dealt with the squinty eyed dweeb who had invaded their table.
“Ye heard me
right,” Gilber said to John, though still speaking loudly enough for all to
hear. “Four Blazkor engineers couldn’t screw in a light bulb if they wer’ given
a week ta figure it out.”
“I’ve heard
Blazkor men are so dumb they need lessons from Hymalious men on how to fak
their wives,” John said loudly, following his superior officers lead.
“Solar hells,”
Gilber cursed, glancing away from the table to give John a look of respect. He
then looked back. “That piss ye off, bearded nut. What he just said about the
Blazkor?”
*
David wasn’t
getting anywhere with these people. It was time he put all his cards on the
table.
“I knew your
friend,” he told the fair voiced one.
“Whatchoo know
about our friend?” the sweaty man asked.
“I know he’s
dead,” David said, and almost seemingly before he finished talking, the fair voiced
man was out of his chair, pulling David from his chair, and putting a large
pistol to David’s temple.
“What the fak did
you do to Buss?” the fair voiced man asked David with a surprising calm. “If
you give me an answer I don’t like, I WILL pull the trigger.”
There was a noise
behind him and suddenly the two military men were on their feet with guns in
their hands. The three other men at David’s table all got up with guns of their
own and just like that David was in the middle of a standoff.
“Freeze,” said
the military man with the cigar. “Get yer guns on the ground now.” His pistol
was trained solely on the fair voiced one who had David hostage.
The other
military man had his gun wavering back and forth between the bearded guy and
the hooded guy, while his other hand pulled out a badge. “We’re Prime Council
officials of the military operations division.” He flashed the badge to Lankey
who nodded. “My name is Colonel John Adams and this is General Edward Gilber.”
John was
addressing the four armed men again when he continued. “You’re under arrest as
Blazkor terrorists and traitors to the Global Alliance.”
“These men with
you?” the fair voiced one asked David quietly.
“Never seen them
before in my life,” David said honestly. He raised his voice. “Come on guys,
can’t we all lower the guns and talk this out like men?” If no one else was
going to try to resolve the situation, he’d have to do it.
*
As soon as the
guns came out, Alec grabbed Steph and pulled her to safety behind the bar.
“It’s okay,” he
told her, pressing her safely against the back of the bar. “I’ll protect you.”
“Yeah okay,” Steph said with a roll of her
eyes. “With what?”
Alec grabbed a
whiskey bottle and held it upside down. He made a hopeful gesture, and again
Steph rolled her eyes, taking the bottle from him and holding it ready. He was
glad at least she was willing to do the fighting. He wasn’t really much of a
fighter anyway.
*
The sweaty one
sidled closer to David, even as his gun was still trained on General Gilber.
“What the
Nebulous hells you sayin bout Buss bein dead?” he asked David.
“He died on my
examination table,” David told everyone in the room. “He was suffering from a
severe condition. His body was rejecting his own blood.” He could tell from the
faces of the group that they weren’t much surprised by what David was saying.
John continued
yelling as if he hadn’t heard David at all. “Put the guns down and tell us your
mission,” he told the men. “Hand over what you took from Prime central.”
“You’ve seen the
disease before,” David said to the men who seemed very confused now who to
focus their attention on more. “It’s spreading, isn’t it? I can help your
people.”
“Shut up,” the
fair voiced man with a gun to David’s head said. David was much inclined to
oblige the man’s request.
“Doctor,” John
said from only feet away where he still had his gun drawn. “You’ve stumbled
into an awkward situation, and I think its best you leave.”
“Oh no,” the fair
voiced man said, holding David in place. “He’s not going anywhere. Come any closer
and I kill him. I swear I will.”
“No you won’t,”
John said, stepping forward suddenly and grabbing the gun in the leader’s hand.
John twisted the man’s arm back, pulling the gun away from David’s head, and the
doctor immediately dived away to safety.
John kept
twisting the man’s arm until he dropped the gun, all while the sweaty rebel
turned his gun to fire. John was already ahead of him, shooting the second
rebel with the gun in his spare hand. With his main hand he slammed the first
rebel face first into the nearest table.
His partner
Gilber shot the bearded rebel in the chest and kicked over a table to use as
cover as the hooded rebel opened fire on the general and made for the bar. As
he hid down behind the bar there was a scream, and Alec rose from behind the
bar with Steph, the two backing away slowly.
“Don’t hurt us,”
David heard Alec beg, hiding behind Steph who had a bottle held like a weapon.
“Take the plans
Nicholas and go!” the Rebel being held against the table by John yelled across
the room. “Just launch!”
Nick bolted from
the scene, firing a few more shots at Gilber before disappearing down stairs
David hadn’t even noticed were there behind the bar.
“Billy was
right,” Ed Gilber told Colonel Adams as he got up from behind the table. “They took
the plans for the Rebirth.”
“I’m going after
them,” John said as the general took over holding their prisoner. John reloaded
his pistol and made for the stairs.
“There’s no
escape down there,” Lankey warned John. “That way jus’ leads down ta the cellar.”
“Thanks,” John
said with a nod, disappearing after Nick.
*
The cellar was
dark, damp, and quiet; but not particularly large. The man wasn’t there. There
was, however, a keg that had been moved, and underneath it was a hole with a
ladder down into another cavern. John wondered if Lankey knew about this.
John took the
ladder down and what he found at the bottom was beyond his belief. He took off
his sunglasses to make sure he was making out in the dark what he thought he
was making out. There was to be no doubt at all as the Blazkor gunship lit up
and the engine spun loudly to life.
The cavern was
only just large enough to house the large vehicle, and how it had gotten below
the bar, was anyone’s guess. If John had to guess, he would have to assume it
had been there before the building was even put up. The old paint job and
rusted metal parts seemed to confirm his theory. But frankly he had gawked
enough. This was very bad.
John began
climbing back up the ladder.
*
“We could die,” Alec
said to Steph, hoping maybe the danger had triggered in her some kind of
miraculous attraction to him. “Right here. And if we did I’d wanna die knowing
I kissed the most beautiful girl in the world.”
“Ew,” Steph said
putting her hand in his face. “No thank you. I have a boyfriend.”
There was a
rumbling and the whole building began to shake. Bottles fell off the shelves
behind the bar, making a loud crash of glass as they shattered.
“Why’s the place
shaking?” David asked out loud. Was it some kind of quake? Alec had never actually
been in a quake before.
“Run!” the large
Colonel John Adams yelled as he returned up the stairs and began waving for
them to head to the exit. “We have to get out of here now!” Alec didn’t know
what was going on, but everyone was doing what the colonel asked.
“Did ye stop
him?” the general asked his man.
“Just get the fak
out,” John insisted. “Go! Go!”
“Alright,” Alec
complained as he followed Steph outside into the sandy streets, “you don’t have
to swear.”
Alec looked back
to watch John help Ed Gilber get their prisoner from the building, when behind
them the whole building collapsed in on itself. The doorway caved in, and a
massive plume of rubble and debris blew into the air from the hole as the
entire building imploded into the ground. And something began to rise up
through the dust.
* * *
“You can’t keep
us in here forever,” Emma yelled at the ceiling, banging on the walls again. “I
demand to see my mother!”
There was a loud
‘fiss’ behind Emma, and the door there opened. “Oops,” Emma said, surprised she
was so far off from where she thought the door was.
An older woman
Emma recognized from the TV came into the room and sat at the table in front of
Kat. She had a bowl cut of thin gray hair, and her skin was wrinkly but still
she was holding onto a measure of her once youthful beauty and grace.
“Katherine
Pross,” the woman said Kat’s full name aloud. “You have been a person of
interest to us for some time.” She began laying out pages on the table, careful
not to interfere with Kat’s set up. “My name and title is Chairwoman of the
Prime Council Maggie May. Have you heard of me?”
Kat nodded as
Emma took a seat beside them. “Y-you’re the mayor of Hymalious city,” Kat said,
likely thanks to her eidetic memory.
“That’s right,”
Councillor May said with a nod. “I’ve got a few too many titles if you ask me.”
“And I’m Emma—“
Emma started to say, but the councilwoman interrupted her.
“Emily Penman,”
The councillor used her full name. She hated her name, as it had been given to
her by her father. “Yes, we’ve got a lot in here on you as well.”
“I knew your
mother,” the councillor continued to say, closing a folder she had only just
opened and turning her attention entirely to address Emma. “In fact you could
even say we were friends.”
“I’m sorry to be
the one to tell you that she’s dead.”
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